McCain Rebukes Giuliani on Waterboarding Remark

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s statement on Wednesday that he was uncertain whether waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique, was torture drew a sharp rebuke yesterday from Senator John McCain, who said that his failure to call it torture reflected his inexperience.

“All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today,” Mr. McCain, who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, said in a telephone interview.

Of presidential candidates like Mr. Giuliani, who say that they are unsure whether waterboarding is torture, Mr. McCain said: “They should know what it is. It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture.”

Mr. Giuliani said on Wednesday night at a forum in Davenport, Iowa, that he favored “aggressive questioning” of terrorism suspects and using “means that are a little tougher” with terrorists but that the United States should not torture people. On the question of whether waterboarding is torture, however, Mr. Giuliani said he was unsure.

“It depends on how it’s done,” he said, adding that he was unsure whether descriptions of the practice by the “liberal media” were accurate. “It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.”

Dr. Allen S. Keller, the director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, said waterboarding involved tipping a person back, covering his mouth with a cloth and repeatedly pouring water over the cloth to make him gag and experience a drowning sensation. If it is done long enough, Dr. Keller said, there is a risk that the person may drown or have a heart attack.

With the exception of Mr. McCain, who believes that torture is ineffective because its victims will say anything to make it stop, several leading Republican presidential candidates have suggested that they would use aggressive or coercive interrogation techniques — they say they would stop short of torture — to prevent a terrorist attack.

Fred D. Thompson, the actor and former senator from Tennessee, said at a recent stop in Florida that he would not use waterboarding “as a matter of course” but that in certain circumstances officials had to “do what is necessary” to prevent attacks and save lives.

Mr. Giuliani’s remarks about waterboarding seemed to leave more leeway toward using the practice than remarks he made at a news conference in June. Then, he said that he favored aggressive interrogation techniques, but that “I think you can do it without something like waterboarding.” On Wednesday night, he made it clear that officials should have a wide array of options available to them to try to prevent a potential attack.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

The Giuliani campaign responded to Mr. McCain’s comments with a statement from its senior military adviser, Adm. Robert J. Natter, retired, the former commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet.

“The highly politicized nature of political campaigns makes that forum a poor arena in which to debate the distinctions between torture and different forms of interrogation,” Admiral Natter said. “Is waterboarding torture? I don’t know. I was waterboarded as part of my military training, and I would say that it falls into a gray area.”

Dr. Keller, an outspoken opponent of waterboarding and similar techniques, said of such trials that “context is everything,” because people who are waterboarded as an experiment or as part of their training know that they will not be hurt in the end.

In his remarks in Iowa, Mr. Giuliani also criticized Democrats who call sleep deprivation torture.

“They talk about sleep deprivation,” he said. “I mean, on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly. That’s silly.”